


I Am Dissonance {waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune}

by maybetomorrow



Series: Atlas: Space [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: 2x04, 2x06, 2x09, 2x16, Canon Compliant, F/M, I'll tag better when I'm sober, Mercury - Freeform, learning to do the right thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetomorrow/pseuds/maybetomorrow
Summary: {Mercury}orMon-El must make the choice between what is right and what is easy.  Again and again.2x04, 2x06, 2x09, and 2x16 reflection as Mon-El starts to become the man he wants to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "How to feel different, how to feel new..."

“I’ll go anywhere you want

Anywhere you want me

I know the further I go

The harder I try, only keeps my eyes closed

And somehow I’ve fallen in love

With this middle ground at the cost of my soul

Yet I know, if I stepped aside

Released the controls, you would open my eyes

That somehow, all of this mess

Is just my attempt to know the worth of my life…”

— “Mercury,” Sleeping at Last

 

“I know it’s not easy for you to be nice to me.Where I’m from, and all,” he admitted to Kara, as they sat in the medical bay after he’d tricked Winn into sneaking him out of the DEO for night out.He’d gone and gotten himself in trouble and she should have been yelling at him, but she wasn’t.She was kind and honest with him, sharing pieces of her past to show him that she’d had to learn the same lessons he was learning now.And the more she talked, the more it felt like she was apologizing in the midst of this heart-to-heart.

From what he’d seen, nothing Kara did was easy.Not being a hero.Not being a reporter.Everything about her screamed sacrifice and selflessness and it sounded utterly exhausting. He couldn’t begin to fathom how she did it. But it was incredible.

And somehow, she’d found it in her heart to fight off what she’d been taught of his people and give him a chance.He’d be damned if he let that slip by.And beyond that, she was giving him a real chance to prove himself, taking him into her custody and under her supervision.Offering him a freedom he had doubted he would get again. 

They were laughing and she was smiling and this all felt so _easy_.He didn’t have to try to be nice to her or to like her.It just happened.And for a moment, he was happy with just that — until he remembered that she had taken a huge leap.She put her faith in him.And trust was never easy.It needed to go both ways.He swallowed and his face fell as he prepared himself to say it.To commit to putting his faith in her — in knowing that she was looking out for him.That he was ready.

“I’m in your hands, Kara.”

The words were not as easy to say as he had intended.He wanted it to be easy.He always wanted it to be easy.

But he’d taken the easy way out too many times.Days he had kept silent even when he wanted to speak.Times he’d closed his eyes to avoid seeing the terrible things around him.Moments he had no power but never tried to fight despite it.Hours he spent clutching a bottle instead of feeling whatever was trapped within him.

So many times, doing nothing had been the easy part.Standing aside.Passivity had turned his blood cold and still.Had turned his tongue and heart to marble.It was not living.It was watching your life being lived — by any stranger who made an appearance.He didn’t want that anymore.

He said it.He gave her all the trust he could spare and let her take control. 

***

He wasn’t sure if her trust was misplaced or if life on Earth was harder than he imagined.Working at CatCo had been a mess from start to finish.He didn’t know what he was doing, he knew no one but Kara, and he was always saying the wrong thing in this new language. And Kara was mad at him.Constantly.If it wasn’t the way he was working — which was not well, considering he didn’t understand what his tasks actually entailed or what was the actual purpose of having him answer the phone when everyone wanted to speak to someone else — it was his social behavior, his eating habits, and anything else Kara happened to witness.

Every little thing he did was under intense scrutiny, and it was exhausting.Worse than he had imagined Kara’s life of public service could be.And he wasn’t even doing that.Yet.He was just interning.Whatever that was supposed to mean.Earth employment was a strange and fickle thing.

And then he was fired, and Kara took a step back.Never before had someone lowering their expectations felt so wrong.But he had some control of his path on Earth now, which was a small mercy.

Still, she had a plan for him, and he didn’t follow it during his new independence, because he still didn’t know what he was doing.She caught him in the middle of roughing up Brian, and it shouldn’t have surprised him because he knew it was the easy thing to do — using his powers like this. 

And he was so angry at her.First for being so quick to turn on him, to be so angry and blame it on who he was, on his past. But then, second, to make him hate himself for it, too.Because he knew he could have done better, yet he didn’t.He knew.And the moment he saw the look in her eyes, that bright flash of blue, and heard the crossness in her voice, he was already lecturing himself on choosing what was easy.Because he should have chosen what was right, and _gods_ he knew it now.And suddenly, all the kindness she’d shown him, tossing aside her prejudices to help him — it didn’t mean anything, did it?

He went out drinking, because that was — he didn’t want to think about it.It was what he wanted to do.And he was building a nice buzz, trying to work his way into having a better night than his day turned out.But Alex had to ruin it.

Because he _really_ didn’t need Alex making him feel like shit, too.Not when he’d fallen back on what was easy and disappointed the only person whose opinion still mattered to him.Not when he was already so angry at himself. 

Nothing she said surprised him.Not calling him a coward.Not saying she didn’t believe in him.It was nothing that didn’t run through his own head.

That was, until she walked up to him and lowered her voice, half threatening and half exasperated.

“My sister, she's the one who believes in you.That’s why she’s so _upset_ with you all the time. She thinks you have potential, to make a difference, like _she_ does.To be a hero.”Her words both hurt and healed him.He didn’t understand how that could be. 

“I don’t know how,” he said, turning away from the bar.

“You can start by standing up.Like the rest of us,” Alex snapped angrily as she turned away. 

He left his last shot on the counter untouched.And then — he stood up.

***

He had worked like hell to try and be better.He trained with her to control his powers.He got a job — a fair one without his powers — that was at last worth something.He started to become a hero.And he was still trying.He started learning what it took to do what was right. 

And it wasn’t easy.She had warned him as much.When they joked about him becoming a superhero, sitting peacefully on her couch the red blanket spread between them, she had told him “if you take this road, easy is over.”

“I don’t want easy,” he said.And he didn’t.He was sick of easy.Of being the person who let things slip aside despite his better judgement.Life wasn’t supposed to be all easy.You were supposed to fight everyday — to stay alive, to protect what you cared about, to find something worth living for.And fighting by her side — it felt like some combination of the three. 

And somewhere along the way, he fell.Hard.Like getting the wind knocked out of him.He loved her.

It was one of the two things he’d never decided to tell her.Two secrets he kept as their relationship changed and she chose to be with him.The first was the full extent of his feelings.He’d denied it every time she asked if he liked her.But he excused it because he wasn’t really lying.He didn’t just like her.He loved her.But she wasn’t ready to hear that.So he fought the words off every day.

The other secret was a bigger mistake to keep.As they turned from nothing into something spectacular, choosing to say it became even harder to think of.He let it slip his mind.Because it was easier to cling to his identity here than it was to admit his past — to pretend he was nobody of importance before.Especially after everything that had happened between them.He didn’t want to ruin that.

And when he told her, his hand forced by merit of the situation rather than his own choice, he knew what a mistake he’d made.She was hurt.He’d thought she’d be angry for longer, but once they were off his parents’ ship and all his secrets were laid bare — except for his own feelings — it was just hurt.As if she’d saved all her walls and all her hostility for his mother and father.

Now she was just in pain and it was his fault and he couldn’t breathe.

She didn’t want to talk to him.He knew that.And it’d be easy to just avoid her in the hope that she would calm down.And it would be easy to make excuses.But he didn’t want that anymore.He wanted to give her the truth.The whole truth.So he told her how he felt, knowing that he was losing her, only hoping she’d listen.No part of him anticipated her returning his feelings or forgiving him on the spot for what a catastrophic idiot he had been.

“You just want things to be easy, Mon-El.But being a hero and falling in love — those are not easy things.They’re hard, and they’re messy, and they hurt sometimes.”

Those words hurt almost as much as her ending it — because she couldn’t see how difficult this really was.No part of loving her had ever been easy.Not earning her trust.Not the changes it took to get there.Not even admitting that he didn’t know if he ever would have told her.She hadn’t made any of it easy. 

And he could have stayed there and begged her for forgiveness.To make her listen to him.But that wouldn’t have been right.It wouldn’t be fair to her.Not when even looking at him was hurting her.So he chocked back any words he was hoping to say.He’d said enough.Instead, he walked through her open door, trying not to meet her eye.Trying not to listen as she muffled back a sob.Trying not to break.

Then he left to speak to his parents.Even though it scared the shit out of him.Because his parents were many things, but receptive and supportive were not the two words he would have chosen first.Or tenth. 

Still he summoned all his inner strength and transported onto the ship, and finally gave his parents a piece of his mind.He watched as their gazed turned hopeful to angry as he spoke, his tongue as bitter and harsh as the storm brewing inside him.

“I detest who I was,” he had said.“I was ignorant and blind to those around me and letting myself be propped up at the expense of our people.And I’m tired of being served and I’m tired of taking the _easy_ way out and I am _done_ being your prince.”

He felt a surge of pride fueling his anger as his mother told him that he sounded like Kara.Because he wasn’t the only one who found himself unrecognizable.She was the best thing that ever happened to him.And if he’d changed that much, perhaps he was redeemable.Perhaps he was worth something yet. 

“And whether we’re together or not, being near her makes me a better person.It makes me the person that I _want_ to be.”

He left his parents.He chose to return to Earth.To truly go home.Because even if Kara never spoke to him again, he was still bound here.Earth had become more of a home than Daxam had ever been.

And she didn’t need to choose to be with him.He knew he’d messed everything up too much to be able to expect or even hope for that.But she deserved so much better.And he — he needed to figure out exactly what kind of man he wanted to be.How to be someone worthy of survival — of trust — of love.

Fighting every day to be the kind of man she deserved — that wouldn’t be easy.But he was going to do just that.As long as it took.And once he was that man, well that wouldn’t be the end.That would just be the start.

**Author's Note:**

> I got drunk and forgot to upload until three minutes ago so please forgive meeeee.
> 
> Come say hi: karadanversprince on tumblr


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